How Santa Counts Down to Christmas
Today over at North Pole Flight Command they marked 350 Days Until Santa’s Launch.
It got little notice.
Whether anyone notices or not isn’t what is important. It’s a marker. A point on the calendar. A mark in a series of marks that leads to one thing. As each marker passes the anticipation grows towards an important event.
It is a very good example of the many ways we have of counting down to Christmas. And I think we need to talk about it.
Most countdowns that you see — whether it is online or via some sort of advent calendar — counts down the time until Christmas Day.
But that is not how we do it here at the North Pole.
At the North Pole we are focused on Operation Merry Christmas, which is ultimately Santa traveling around the world to believers everywhere.
Santa obviously can’t just do it on Christmas Day – it takes him some time! So he launches ahead of Christmas day. And that’s what we count down to. This is how Santa himself counts down to Christmas.
You see, for Santa, the countdown is always in front of him. It’s in every room and in every office at the North Pole. Clocks are everywhere. He has it on his watch. It’s on his phone. Santa always knows – down to the second – when it is time to deliver. Everything he does all year long goes into that countdown.
So, when you visit SantaUpdate.com or any other OfficialNorthPole.com website you will see the same countdown – the days, hours, minutes and seconds until Santa launches on his merry way from the North Pole.
And why not? That’s Christmas to us! That is what we work for every day of the year.
Usually, right around the first week of December, someone will say to us, “Hey, your countdown is off!”, not realizing we not counting down to Christmas Day. Then we have to explain it all again.
Christmas to us is more than just a day on the calendar. It’s a season. It’s a time that takes time. Christmas is when Santa takes off, we track him, and we follow along until everyone has a Merry Christmas. Then we celebrate some more.
In many parts of the world Christmas only begins on December 25th – and it doesn’t end until the 6th of January. But in many other parts of the world Christmas begins long before and it is celebrated long after.
Counting down is just part of the fun.
For me I post a count down of the weeks. The first of this year was made last week and the next countdown post I make will be tomorrow.
Elf Ernest, who started this whole thing online, counts down by months. His post shows up on the 24th of the month – the original Santa Update of 35 years ago online. It’s just another way of counting down and celebrating Santa.
It’s all measured. (There’s a reason I post it on the day of the week that I do — can you figure it out?)
For every elf, whether you’re tracking Santa or making toys or doing the weather on the news or merely just another part of the Santa effort, counting down is just part of what we do.
And for every believer…well, it is part of what makes it all so fun.
See you on the countdown!
- 50 Weeks Until Christmas - January 8, 2026
- How Santa Counts Down to Christmas - January 7, 2026
- 51 Weeks Until Christmas - January 1, 2026
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